Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

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ironlung40
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by ironlung40 » Sun Mar 06, 2016 2:41 pm

Cool. I will wait a while but eventually pick one up.
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markjazzbassist
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by markjazzbassist » Tue Mar 08, 2016 9:46 pm

sold some things and just ordered the BAX. I can't wait to report back with my findings. I'll be hunting down a power amp and OBC115 as well to pair it with.
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by a.hun » Tue Mar 08, 2016 10:38 pm

:D !!!


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by ironlung40 » Sun Mar 13, 2016 3:03 am

O.K. Andy hit the nail on the head with his in depth review of the bax...so I won't echo everything he said...but I used it this weekend with my OR120 and it plays perfectly with that amp...couldn't believe it....It cleans up well, and covers a lot of ground toneally....from old vintagey to new metal if you want it, but don't think that it is too modern....it can be set for vintage if that is what you want....I started off with the manual suggested settings of blues lead and rock and have basically left it there...Sounds really really nice, organic, natural, dynamic, powerful, and Orangey....I have yet to run it in front of a higher headroom clean amp like my v4 or fender twin reverb to see if it transforms it into and Orange Amp, and it might be awhile before I do as I am really liking it with my OR120...I was afraid more Orange atop an Orange would not work out well, but Andy said it sounded good so it had to right? Well he was right!

For an example of the tones I usually play with: mix Graveyard with Black Sabbath 13 and the first Pentagram album with a dab of Mountain..and minus the licks that is the sound I hear in my head and try to get out of my amp more or less. I really like dynamics and using my guitar controls to clean up my amps, overdrives, and fuzzes I experiment with. If it doesn't clean up it does not stay on my board for long. No Muffs for me unless for a solo.

Currently I am running the serenity overdrive-->Bax-->colorsound overdrive clone-->mxr microamp. I could probably just use the bax and cover most of the same territory as all of them, as it sounds like I am too heavy on overdrives, but I like what each does so they are all staying for now.

My gripes? It is large and takes up a lot of room. I wish the led lights were orange, and I think I would prefer standard pots for all of the controls especially the gain and volume. I would like to be able to precisely dial in the volume I want instead of the clicks. It is not a big deal really though. Mine is also silent on the first setting and nothing on the second or 7:30, as Andy called it, and then it comes on after that. It gets pretty loud pretty fast. I find for bedroom volumes you are going to have to control the overall level from the amp to get it down to those volume levels. At a gig level or band practice level I wonder if you would have the same problem and need to adjust the amp to get the volume right even when loud. I don't know as I have not tried to mix with other bandmates with it.

I also wish that the boost had a level option instead of being set at 5db and I wish it worked with the pedal in bypass. It would be cool to have it as a clean boost only option similar to the mxr microamp, but it does what was intended well, so I am just sayin'.

It is a great offering from Orange, I love it, and I am extremely happy with it....get one!

Now I gotta try the 2 stroke!
Sincerely,
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by a.hun » Mon Mar 14, 2016 9:57 am

That's great. Yeah, no worries at all using it with Orange amps. I'd also thought at first it might be too much of a good thing, but no it just makes a good thing even better! :D

As I said if you want to transform a clean amp into an Orange with it you're best to try and find the amp EQ settings closest to flat as a starting point. For most Fenders that means bass and treble right down and mids up full.

Yeah the first 2 volume / gain clicks both being silent is a bit annoying but not too big a deal. I also need to drop the amp volume settings at times, and how the amp output changes for different BBg settings including the 5dB boost depends on both the amp and volume levels you are running. It is most dramatic with uncompressed amps like my solid state bass ones or the Hiwatt / OR120. Going into a more compressed front end or harder working output section will make things easier to control.

Had much fun the other night with the BBG and my new 4003W bass. Again the dynamic range is so massive that I could simply set more gain / volume than I really needed and just control everything from the bass - the way I always like to. And it really does respond about as nicely to input changes as I've always been used to when gigging my OR120. For a bit less dramatic dynamics some pre / post BBg compression can also help, especially if you don't have any natural hard working valve amp compression going on.

Once you start to play around with the BBg you soon realise that it isn't simply another gain / EQ pedal. It really does react very much like a great amp - a very versatile and terrific sounding one.


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

markjazzbassist
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by markjazzbassist » Tue Mar 15, 2016 1:54 pm

got it guys.

sadly, underwhelming. but i'm a bassist so please take that into account. My clean DI tone versus through the BAX without any cut/boost yielded a severly cut low end (it's made for guitar i said, just boost some lows). I found i needed to boost all the bottom knob to get a equivalent level to my bypassed tone. The Middle and Top were decent and I was definately able to get some serious variation and tone shaping there. The Gain i had at 9'oclock and anything past that it started to breakup (with a passive bass), so i would say it isn't really meant to be very clean.

All in all, i was let down and will be selling mine, just the lack of bass frequencies really turned me off sadly. sorry to be the first bad review, but i think it's better tailored for guitar.
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by a.hun » Tue Mar 15, 2016 2:50 pm

markjazzbassist wrote:got it guys.

sadly, underwhelming. but i'm a bassist so please take that into account. My clean DI tone versus through the BAX without any cut/boost yielded a severly cut low end (it's made for guitar i said, just boost some lows). I found i needed to boost all the bottom knob to get a equivalent level to my bypassed tone. The Middle and Top were decent and I was definately able to get some serious variation and tone shaping there. The Gain i had at 9'oclock and anything past that it started to breakup (with a passive bass), so i would say it isn't really meant to be very clean.

All in all, i was let down and will be selling mine, just the lack of bass frequencies really turned me off sadly. sorry to be the first bad review, but i think it's better tailored for guitar.
Fair enough. Note that I had a fairly similar experience with the Hiwatt though, especially at first before I set things nearer flat. What exactly were you putting the BBg through?

Remember also that there are more ways than one to get to an EQ goal. It is really all about tonal balance. If you want more bass overall, rather than boosting the bass try cutting the treble first, playing around with possibly cutting some mids too, and then boosting the overall output to counter the losses. That should get you decent bottom end at the volume levels you want. Rather than just finding that you haven't got enough bass with the bass knob up full you may very well find that you can actually get plenty of bottom end that way - even with the bass control set much lower. The number of times I've found that sort of thing with different amps is unbelievable, part of what makes them all so interesting to me. Maybe you could also treat this as 'a different amp' and try experimenting some more before you make a final decision?

Sort of thing I was talking about HERE really. You do kind of need to treat the BBg as an amp, not just as a straightforward effects unit...

I'm not sure what your exact goals are tonally, but seem to recall you go for more 'vintage rumble' than I normally do. If you are looking for massive rumbling bottom, well either dial much of the treble and mids out (still leaving enough to play with the instrument tone knobs for whatever note definition you need), or yes, if it just isn't happening then look elsewhere. But whether for bass or guitar if you are wanting drive sounds you generally want that to happen more in the mids anyway as overdriven bottom end just tends to mush things out badly. And if you aren't after drive sounds, well this is basically a dirty Orange design, not an endless headroom clean machine. Trick I've always used though is to set the gain that bit higher than I'll actually mostly be needing and attenuate from the bass just bringing it up to the levels you want. That way you can get better fine control especially around the clean to crunch crossover zone, and get to play about with all those lovely tonal flavours there.

Hope you can manage to find some more useable sounds, but if not than maybe it just isn't for you after all. Do give it a decent chance though and try to think a bit 'out of the box' with your settings. (And don't forget the volume / tone controls on your instrument itself!)

BTW a nice simple, effective (and inexpensive) alternative solution I've found for balancing good (clean + punchy) bass with (moderate) midrange overdrive sounds is the EH Bass Soul Food. The clean / driven blend knob there is key, as it is with many other more recent bass pedals.

Good luck with it!


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by markjazzbassist » Wed Mar 16, 2016 1:52 pm

a.hun wrote:
markjazzbassist wrote:got it guys.

sadly, underwhelming. but i'm a bassist so please take that into account. My clean DI tone versus through the BAX without any cut/boost yielded a severly cut low end (it's made for guitar i said, just boost some lows). I found i needed to boost all the bottom knob to get a equivalent level to my bypassed tone. The Middle and Top were decent and I was definately able to get some serious variation and tone shaping there. The Gain i had at 9'oclock and anything past that it started to breakup (with a passive bass), so i would say it isn't really meant to be very clean.

All in all, i was let down and will be selling mine, just the lack of bass frequencies really turned me off sadly. sorry to be the first bad review, but i think it's better tailored for guitar.
Fair enough. Note that I had a fairly similar experience with the Hiwatt though, especially at first before I set things nearer flat. What exactly were you putting the BBg through?

Remember also that there are more ways than one to get to an EQ goal. It is really all about tonal balance. If you want more bass overall, rather than boosting the bass try cutting the treble first, playing around with possibly cutting some mids too, and then boosting the overall output to counter the losses. That should get you decent bottom end at the volume levels you want. Rather than just finding that you haven't got enough bass with the bass knob up full you may very well find that you can actually get plenty of bottom end that way - even with the bass control set much lower. The number of times I've found that sort of thing with different amps is unbelievable, part of what makes them all so interesting to me. Maybe you could also treat this as 'a different amp' and try experimenting some more before you make a final decision?

Sort of thing I was talking about HERE really. You do kind of need to treat the BBg as an amp, not just as a straightforward effects unit...

I'm not sure what your exact goals are tonally, but seem to recall you go for more 'vintage rumble' than I normally do. If you are looking for massive rumbling bottom, well either dial much of the treble and mids out (still leaving enough to play with the instrument tone knobs for whatever note definition you need), or yes, if it just isn't happening then look elsewhere. But whether for bass or guitar if you are wanting drive sounds you generally want that to happen more in the mids anyway as overdriven bottom end just tends to mush things out badly. And if you aren't after drive sounds, well this is basically a dirty Orange design, not an endless headroom clean machine. Trick I've always used though is to set the gain that bit higher than I'll actually mostly be needing and attenuate from the bass just bringing it up to the levels you want. That way you can get better fine control especially around the clean to crunch crossover zone, and get to play about with all those lovely tonal flavours there.

Hope you can manage to find some more useable sounds, but if not than maybe it just isn't for you after all. Do give it a decent chance though and try to think a bit 'out of the box' with your settings. (And don't forget the volume / tone controls on your instrument itself!)

BTW a nice simple, effective (and inexpensive) alternative solution I've found for balancing good (clean + punchy) bass with (moderate) midrange overdrive sounds is the EH Bass Soul Food. The clean / driven blend knob there is key, as it is with many other more recent bass pedals.

Good luck with it!


Andy.
thanks andy i will continue to mess about with it. yes i know due to the BAX i can boost the mids by cutting bass and treble and not necessarily boosting the mids to create a "n" shaped curve.
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by a.hun » Wed Mar 16, 2016 3:04 pm

markjazzbassist wrote:thanks andy i will continue to mess about with it. yes i know due to the BAX i can boost the mids by cutting bass and treble and not necessarily boosting the mids to create a "n" shaped curve.
Oh you'll (hopefully!) find you can do about anything with the BBg EQ. To paraphrase a certain Henry Ford, 'any colour you like as long as it is Orange'. :wink:

On the tonal balance thing, it is maybe a bit counter-intuitive, but here's another way to look at it if it helps.
You want more bass? You might well think that cutting the treble to get that means you'll end up with less treble. But if you do that and then also boost the overall volume then you can get back what you have cut, you'll have a similar total amount of actual upper frequencies because you've made things louder again. Only difference is that now that things are louder there'll also be more bass in relation to that treble content, you have shifted the tonal balance to the bass. Do that enough and you'll definitely be able to back off the bass too so that you have full control of the bottom end without even going near maxing the bass knob. Then you can adjust the mids however you feel like, keep tweaking the overall balance if needed to compensate, and hey presto you've got the sounds you want, just not at the knob settings you'd maybe first expect. And handily once you've found the knob settings you need you can always get them back exactly due to the position notches.

The great thing I find about Baxandall EQs is that you can actually get quite radical with them and still get very natural sounding tones. But Baxandall or not as long as you remember that effective EQ'ing is all about the tonal balance, and that more volume means more of everything. If you don't want more of something try cutting it instead and adjusting the volume to give you more of what you actually do want.
(Also works in reverse BTW but that is maybe a mind game too far for now. :lol:)

Hope that helps! :)


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by bclaire » Wed Mar 16, 2016 10:21 pm

Mark, you ever use a Sansamp BassDI? I have one and it sounds pretty amazing....

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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by a.hun » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:30 pm

If the BBg eventually didn't (sadly) work out for you than there are indeed other solutions. Also from Tech21 I'm a big fan of their VT Bass pedal. Another Sansamp solution and another really useful tone shaping monster, this time with more Ampeg flavour. Has a lot more built in compression I'd say, but that saves worrying about carrying that separately.

I'm over @ my mate Dave's in England for a couple of days and it is one of the two pedals I brought, the other being the EH BSF. (No BBg this time, but there is already a real proper Orange amp here - his TT combo!) :D


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

markjazzbassist
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by markjazzbassist » Sun Mar 20, 2016 8:20 pm

Billy yes I had a sand amp and didn't dig it. Hey Andy does running on 12v and not the battery give you more clean headroom and juice? I might try that too. I'm going to mess with it a bunch tonight and see if I can make it work.
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by a.hun » Sun Mar 20, 2016 9:45 pm

Well there is plenty enough juice even with a 9V supply. What I did notice running 12V is that the distorted note decays sounded a bit less ragged, bit more like the real thing. Orange distortion is special though so not talking smooth smooth - that wouldn't be right either, would it?

Hope you find some tones that really grab you.


Andy.
aNDyH. :wink:

Ever tried to outstare a mirror?

In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find!

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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by Stu Cazz » Tue May 31, 2016 2:14 pm

a.hun wrote:Well there is plenty enough juice even with a 9V supply. What I did notice running 12V is that the distorted note decays sounded a bit less ragged, bit more like the real thing. Orange distortion is special though so not talking smooth smooth - that wouldn't be right either, would it?

Hope you find some tones that really grab you.


Andy.
Funny that I read this now should have checked the setting of my 12V adapter, it was set on 9V!
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Re: Bax Bangeetar - just love it!

Post by Stu Cazz » Tue May 31, 2016 3:12 pm

Well I did it got my Bax, finally!

Long story short ordred a Bax Bangeetar BK and got this:

Image

Nice, but it had to go back.

Wen't to a local shop and had them order me one, no problem it arrived soon and surprise it was even black.
Then all of a sudden I noticed some strange behaviour in the decaying sound.
Even at relatively low gain settings.
I started to get paranoid asked Andy and logically he could not help, I told him that I had tried a it with a 12V adapter and nothing changed. But as I said in my other post I didn't notice that it was set on 9V.
Went back to the store, explained it and they said they would check it.
I asked if they had to send it to Orange, and they confirmed it.
A week later they called, and told me: your pedal is repaired, you can come and pick it up.
When I arrived they told me some weird story about harsh factory settings, and that the suggested settings of the instructions didn't work equally well with all amps bla bla bla....
They told me it had been resetted and it should work now!

I don't know $hit about the technical aspects of those things but it sure sounded suspicious to me that they resetted a fully analogue pedal.

Went home and as expected it did sound exactly the same.
Last time I bought something there.

Well after spending some time with it and using it the right way I have to say that I absolutelly love that thing.
I had the idea that having such a great clean channel on the TH30 it would be the right way to use it there.
Well it would work but it works much better with the dirty channel.
In front of the amp it's insane, pure and simple.
And plugged into the loop was a big surprise,
once I learned how to use the EQ properly I started to find tons of different sounds.

Another really big surprise was when I plugged it in front of my Micro Terror,
the sounds that came out of my speakers were unreal.
The MT is amazing for what it is, but let's admit it it is a bit a one trick pony.
With my Les Paul's I only could use the tone knob settings between 10.30 and 1.30 more or less.
Anything else just didn't do it for me.
Again TONS of different sounds and most of them usable and many just awesome, at one moment I even had a sort of lovely Brian May overdrive tone.
Could not believe it, should have written down the setting but I was to busy playing, tweaking and having fun.

Well that's it another satisfied Bangeetar user.
This one stays!!!

Image

One last thing I noticed that paying at higher volume levels does help too with that decay thing.
Micro Crush/Crush Pix 12L/Micro Terror/TH30 Head with 2x PPC112/Bax Bangeetar

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